I'm trying to figure out what must I do and what must I have to be able to use MS Word's spell-checking in Wordfast Pro. I know there's a setting in WFP to use MS Word's spell-checker. However, I can't figure out how to use it. I tried it with MS Word running and without MS Word running. I've tried it with a blank document open and without a blank document open. I've tried deliberately adding spelling errors to the file and then using F7, but to no avail.

So...
* Which version(s) of MS Word works with this feature?
* What must I do with MS Word (or in MS Word) to enable WFP to use this feature?
* Is there any way I can check (easily) whether a spell-checker installed in MS Word is one that WFP can use?

Or... which is the earliest version of WFP that uses this feature?

Thanks
Samuel

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Not sure which version of WF pro you are using or MS Word as you don't mention it.

I don't know why you should have any problems (do you have valid licenses for both products?, sometimes if you have a "non-official" copy you may have problems actually linking the programs)

I use the latest version of WF pro (2.4.0.1) and I have MS Word 2010, to activate the spell check I simply go to WF, click on File-Preferences-Spelling and here are all the options.

You need to click on "Enable spell check" so that it is selected.

I recommend not selecting "Check spelling as you type" as this usually ends up telling you there are too many mistakes in the document and disconnects itself anyway.

If you want to use MS Word for spellchecker then click on that option, if not click on Hunspell.

However let me say that I personally don't recommend using the MS spell checker within WF. It works fine and MS Word spellchecker is a lot better than Hunspell, but using MS makes the spell checking very slow, annoyingly slow, so much so that it is 4 or 5 times quicker (I actually measured this cause I was so amazed at how slow WF is) if you follow this procedures.

Do the hunspell check and once that is done save the translated file into MS Word and then look for spelling mistakes again using the MS Word file, what I usually do is have the word file and txml files open together and when word finds a mistake I tell it to ignore it and I go to the txml file and fix it there. This is many times faster that doing MS word spell check inside WF.

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Alex Lago wrote:
Not sure which version of WF pro you are using or MS Word as you don't mention it.

I use MS Windows XP SP2, MS Word 2003, and WFP 2.4.0.1. I have a license but haven't bothered to bring WFP out of demo mode yet because I don't use WFP except to check if the files that WFC spat out still works.

I'm asking my question on behalf of other translators, whose work I have to edit, and whom I can clearly see did not use any spell-checking (and I can't blame them unless I can tell them how to fix it myself). So what my system configuration is, isn't really important. What may be important is the minimum required configuration.

However let me say that I personally don't recommend using the MS spell checker within WF. It works fine and MS Word spellchecker is a lot better than Hunspell, but using MS makes the spell checking very slow, annoyingly slow, so much so that it is 4 or 5 times quicker...

In my language (Afrikaans), the Hunspell speller isn't any worse than any of the commercially available MS Word spellers (and there are three of those, distributed by three different companies). However, Hunspell is not an option for my language yet (see this post.

If I could figure out how to get the Hunspell speller working, that'd be better, because Hunspell is free and doesn't require a specific version of MS Word to be installed.

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xxxNMRFrance Local time: 16:28 French to Dutch + ...

Slow

Oct 8, 2010

I deactivated the MS Word spellcheck, because it slowed down considerably and stopped after ten pages. (WF Pro 2.4.0.1 + Word 2003).

Can you use the Word preview option? Window > Show view > Preview, or Alt+W?

Or save as a Word file, proofread the Word file and then make the changes in WF Pro and re-save as a new Word file?

[Modifié le 2010-10-08 18:36 GMT]

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In my language (Afrikaans), the Hunspell speller isn't any worse than any of the commercially available MS Word spellers (and there are three of those, distributed by three different companies). However, Hunspell is not an option for my language yet (see this post.

If I could figure out how to get the Hunspell speller working, that'd be better, because Hunspell is free and doesn't require a specific version of MS Word to be installed.

Aude Sylvain wrote:
Things seem to have moved since May though: my understanding of the last paragraph of Yasmine's post in your other thread is that Hunspell is (now?) available in Afrikaans in WFP.

Thanks, yes, I see that now. It is available via the "update" feature. Updating is not available in DEMO mode, however. This makes me wonder if spell-checking itself is disabled in DEMO mode. If I try to update in DEMO mode, I get an error message, but if I press F7, I get no error message.

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I can't say anything re the demo mode because I have a license installed, but I just tried to update WFP and the 'additional dictionaries' list pops up immediately.

It would certainly be useful for the community to know whether the 'update' feature can be activated in the demo mode, however as far as you are concerned, since I understand you have a license, it might be quicker just to enter it so you have a smooth access to Hunspell in Afrikaans I guess.

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Aude Sylvain wrote:
It would certainly be useful for the community to know whether the 'update' feature can be activated in the demo mode, however as far as you are concerned, since I understand you have a license...

I never work inside WFP myself, so my question is for the benefit of the "community", yes. I suspect many translators who are forced by their agencies to use WFP simply use the demo version.

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It is true that running the Word spellchecker from within Wordfast Pro is very slow. When I work in Wordfast Pro, I also do like suggested by Alex and NMR and generate a preview in MS Word, run the spellcheck there and then make the necessary corrections back in Wordfast Pro. You can always do this regardless of whether the client has sent the original file or not.

This is a quite cumbersome solution, though, so I hope the team at Wordfast will address this problem soon.

Samuel Murray wrote:

NMR wrote:
Can you use the Word preview option? Window > Show view > Preview, or Alt+W?

Yes, that an Alt+H are both options, but it requires commitment from a translator (and some translators whose translations I edit seem to have none).

I also sometimes receive translations for proofreading where the translator hasn't even run a spellcheck. I think it is incredible that some people take on professional translation work and then don't even run the spell-checker before delivery...

In certain formats and systems it can be difficult to run an automatic spellcheck but even if it requires a bit more effort than usual I think that is the least that could be expected.

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Aude Sylvain wrote:
Things seem to have moved since May though: my understanding of the last paragraph of Yasmine's post in your other thread is that Hunspell is (now?) available in Afrikaans in WFP.

Thanks, yes, I see that now. It is available via the "update" feature. Updating is not available in DEMO mode, however. This makes me wonder if spell-checking itself is disabled in DEMO mode.

Aude - In fact, Afrikaans was available in the updates several months before May.

Samuel - Spell-checking is available even in the Demo Mode. Actually, all the features of WFP works in the demo mode except the Remote TM and TM Administration; add to this the regular limitation of 500 TUs per TM.

Samuel Murray wrote:

Aude Sylvain wrote:
It would certainly be useful for the community to know whether the 'update' feature can be activated in the demo mode, however as far as you are concerned, since I understand you have a license...

I never work inside WFP myself, so my question is for the benefit of the "community", yes. I suspect many translators who are forced by their agencies to use WFP simply use the demo version.

Well, the "Wordfast Updates" feature not working in the Demo Mode is not for the sake of spelling checking dictionaries; it is for the major updates that used to be through this feature and that should be available again.

If any one working in the demo mode needs a WF-Hunspell dictionary for a language available only through the updates, they can contact me in private and I will send them the WF *native* module for their language. Placing it in Program Files\Wordfast\plugins is all what is required to make it work properly.

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